Any Ivies or Peers not overrun with a 'hippie infestation'?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
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<p>My daughter is a HS Jr. and deep in the college selection process and is trying to determine the best fit. While she is not defined by the two parties (well, she hasn’t even voted yet), she does find that many conservative analysts (George Will, etc) are often more insightful and well considered than their liberal counterparts. </p>

<p>This is not to mean that she is conservative politically (quite to the contrary at least on social issues), nor is she a supporter of organized religions (but she is spiritual) simply that she does not use 'republican' or 'conservative' with same negative connotations as those she is told that throw these words around on some liberal campuses. Additionally, she does volunteer work but is still hoping to make a more than comfortable living when she completes her undergrad/grad journey - money, in her view, is not the exclusive domain of evil oil barons’ - and she loves shoes.</p>

<p>Her credentials are nearly perfect (what a kid) so she will likely have her choice of many elite schools but we both hope to locate a campus for her to thrive. So far, anecdotally she has been told that neither Brown nor Dartmouth nor many of the small LAS colleges would be the best fit. She has also been told that Stanford, Northwestern, and Penn are more preprofessional and are often considered less immersed in the liberal establishment. </p>

<p>She has ranked her top 5 initial impressions (from college visits) as Stanford, Northwestern, Yale, Dartmouth (she loved the campus), Harvard. She likes the idea of typical college experience with large competitive sports programs so is why I think Stanford and Northwestern were ranked highest. She did not care for the vibe at Duke, although her experience was with a group of more southern applicants so that may have unduly influenced her. </p>

<p>I attended the great University of Illinois (I tried to convince her as Fiske Guide says "Illinois is a budget Ivy") where liberal leanings are much less pronounced, she is not overly interested.</p>

<p>If you believed Obama was a good speaker but that he was incredibly inexperienced and lacked gravitas - and was not the Second Coming? (My thoughts, not hers, but we are often of similar leanings) would you feel free to confess this openly to your faculty or on the quad?</p>

<p>All thoughts, impressions, and insights into any of her top ten: Stanford, Northwestern, Yale, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, Penn, Brown, Duke - or other schools such as Vanderbilt, Pomona College or U Chicago that may help her with her decision are encouraged.</p>

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<p>Your daughter seems to have political leanings similar to those of my freshman at Brown. Alas, the school is overrun with hippies, the painfully indie, and the tragically hip. But enduring all that has been worth it for the blessings of the open curriculum, at least in my kid’s case.</p>

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<p>U of Chicago has a reputation for harboring America’s next hipsters. I mean… look at their application.</p>

<p>Have you considered Georgetown?</p>

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<p>Georgetown, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt. Or maybe Liberty or Bob Jones?</p>

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<p>IMO, don’t choose a school based on its political leanings. College is a time to be introduced to new viewpoints, not to blend into what everyone else believes.</p>

<p>Stanford has the Hoover Institute (a conservative think-tank), but the student body is mostly liberal. </p>

<p>Here’s Princeton Review’s list of most conservative schools.

  1. Texas A&M
  2. thomas aquinas C
  3. SMU
  4. Hillsdale C
  5. US Air Force Academy
  6. U of Mississippi
  7. U of ALabama
  8. Brigham Young U
  9. Randolph-Macon C
  10. Hampden-Syndey C
  11. Pepperdine U
  12. US Naval Academy
  13. Wofford C
  14. C of the Ozards
  15. William Jewell College
  16. Wheaton C
  17. Texas Christian U
  18. U of Dallas
  19. Grove City C
  20. U of Nebraska</p>

<p>so, as you can see, none of the very conservative schools are really what your daughter is looking for.</p>

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<p>Desperatu, I think a bit of a reality check may be in order. Having nearly perfect, or even entirely “perfect”, credentials no longer makes it likely that an applicant will have her choice of many elite schools (though she is likely to be admitted to at least one or two). The elite schools are somewhat less stat- and data-driven as a group than many other colleges, because of their dedication to diversity and other institutional priorities. So while having the great credentials surely increases the chances for admission anywhere, they don’t by themselves make multiple admissions to the very top schools very likely. (You can see evidence of this in the results threads for HYPSM, among others.) I wish her the best of luck!</p>

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<p>I have some impression that if you are a young adult and a conservative, by definition, you are not blending into what everyone else believes. My son visited Hillsdale and it was a great school. It’s very small, however. What is her intended course of study?</p>

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<p>Notre Dame and Vandy, certainly.</p>

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<p>As the parent of a recent Vanderbilt alum, my impression is that Vandy is a school where a girl never has to apologize for loving shoes. And it was founded by a robber baron, too, so how congenial is that? No one will ever mistake it for Wesleyan - not many kids sporting piercings in unusual places, for one thing. </p>

<p>However, its political environment might surprise you, and your d. My liberal daughter came out, if anything, even more so than when she went in. Vanderbilt is a place where your d will find a variety of opinions. She’ll have the opportunity to be politically active on behalf of a full range of issues and candidates. My impression is that few Vanderbilt students would be uncomfortable expressing their political beliefs, whatever they are, to peers or profs. Vandy has a somewhat pre-professional feel, but volunteer service is a huge aspect of campus life.</p>

<p>Vanderbilt is quite different from what people who’ve never set foot on campus often think. It’s an urban school with a sophisticated, increasingly diverse, and increasingly talented student body. It’s in the south, and some may say feels more southern than Duke. But my d never found that a drawback. Her best friends on campus were from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, and Texas. </p>

<p>ag2011, I imagine you were kidding us by suggesting Liberty and Bob Jones with Vandy, GU, and ND? :wink: For one thing, the OP tells us that her d has nearly perfect credentials. Couldn’t find the info for BJU, but the 25th/75th ACT percentiles for Liberty are 18/24, whereas they’re 30/34 at Vandy - so not a lot of common academic ground there.</p>

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<p>Honestly you don’t really have to worry about campuses being too liberal. At all the major top universities, there are a healthy population of conservatives (quite a large troupe of fiscal conservatives, but not so much religiously conservative, but still a decent number) </p>

<p>Even at UC Berkeley (which fits most people’s definition of the epitome of a liberal school), there are highly active conservative student organizations.</p>

<p>Again, I would much rather weight the education and opportunities provided at these institutions rather than the political opinions of the student body.</p>

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<p>@frazzled1- Tongue was planted directly in cheek. I actually raised fears in earlier posts that Stanford would be too conservative because of Hoover, but apparently it’s pretty ivory tower-y and there’s not a lot of interaction. One area that Stanford is more conservative in, apparently (and this is second-hand, I don’t know the situation), is that the Stanford conservative student gets a lot of donations from Hoover while the College Dems are perennially short on cash, although this is counteracted by the over-all liberal/progressive mentality of the students, especially during election years.
I think any major, really good university populace is going to be left-of-center, and I don’t think that this is always going to affect how students are taught (again I’m in high school, so take what I’m saying with a grain of salt). Every school is going to have a conservative movement, and perhaps because they are in a minority they are more vocal/radical. This can be a bad thing. If memory serves me correctly, the head of Harvard Republicans was closeted and had to resign after he came out. I guess what I’m trying to say is that often, because conservatives are in the minority, they tend to be more alienated from the moderate sensitivities of the rest of the student body and more radical.
In closing, I spent five weeks at Georgetown this summer and found the character of much of the student body to be very, very conservative. I would assume that the character at Notre Dame is similar. Just encourage your daughter to choose the school where she’d be happiest- everyone can find their niche.</p>

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<p>in my opinion, there is no such thing as a budget ivy.
you either have the name of Stanford or HYP or you don’t. it isn’t always important, but it means a lot in many circles/professions</p>

<p>ag2011: you are correct about stanford dems.</p>

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<p>ag2011 - you’re in high school? You write very well and have mature insights, too. I predict some nice results for you when you’re making a decision about where to go to college. (Knew you were kidding but wanted to find some way to put the info I’d looked up into my post. :))</p>

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<h2>"She did not care for the vibe at Duke, although her experience was with a group of more southern applicants so that may have unduly influenced her. "</h2>

<p>Is there something about this group of students she found objectionable, other than the fact that they were from are specific region (which should really not be a major issue in selecting a college)? I say this because I’m pretty familiar with Duke (d is a UNC-CH alum with many Duke friends) and don’t think you should rule it out. The university is pretty apolitical, though most Duke students probably identify as somewhat liberal. According to my d, Duke isn’t as tough an environment for conservatives…as say…UNC-CH. (My daughter is a conservative very active in politics…not a pov well tolerated at UNC-CH. You would not be able to criticize Obama and easily get away with it in CH. That being said, she wouldn’t trade her exposure to those with different political views and her experience at Carolina for anything.) </p>

<p>Also, she found the only thing ‘southern’ about Duke was the location since Duke enrolls a large number students from the NE as well as other parts of the country. </p>

<p>And really…what is wrong with students from the South anyway? I hear “southern” used as a pejorative a lot on these CC boards, and I kinda don’t get that.</p>

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<p>OP said: “Her credentials are nearly perfect (what a kid) so she will likely have her choice of many elite schools but we both hope to locate a campus for her to thrive.”</p>

<p>1) What are her safeties? </p>

<p>The HYPed schools you mention routinely deny acceptance to ~80% of valedictorians, 80% of those with 800s on Math and 75% of those with 800s on verbal. So . . . what are her safeties?</p>

<p>2) Picking a school BASED on perceived political leanings is, in a word, foolish, and since your description of her includes only passing refernces to the importance for HER it makes me think that this screening criterion is more about you.</p>

<p>For example, Columbia and Brown and Dartmouth have very different apoproaches to education, from prescribed core curriculum to no breadth requirements at all. How to those kinds of pedagogical differences fit with your daughter; would she thrive with ma rigid set of coroe requirements or none?</p>

<p>In other words, academics is a primary considersation, while polticial leanings - unless it is critical for your kid - is tertiary at best.</p>

<p>Besides, since hippie guys are known to be kind caring feminists your daughter will find them intriguing wherever she goes :-)</p>

<p>P.S. And . . . what are her safeties?</p>

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<p>Agree with kei re: safeties. Many of those with near perfect credentials find themselves declined at all Ivies and many elites…and when that happens, it is a huge disappointment unless the applicant is prepared. Find good safeties and matches and help her learn to love 'em.</p>

<p>Going to slightly disagree on the political leanings criteria though. I think the OP was asking more about ‘freedom of expression’ than liberalism v. conservatism. It IS important that a minority point of view is not just tolerated, but respected and welcomed. This tolerance is something not found on many campuses…elites included. And honestly, it is nothing less than intellectual failure.</p>

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<p>Desperatu,</p>

<p>I’d encourage you to get a copy of the book, <em>Choosing the Right College</em>. It might be very helpful and have just the information you need to begin to narrow your dd’s search.</p>

<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Choosing the Right College 2010-11: The Whole Truth about America’s Top Schools (9781935191605): John Zmirak: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Choosing-Right-College-2010-11-Americas/dp/1935191608/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1296206334&sr=8-1]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Choosing-Right-College-2010-11-Americas/dp/1935191608/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1296206334&sr=8-1)</p>

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in my opinion you’re wrong.</p>

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On CC, if you’re not Northeast you’re crap. I don’t mind it too much, because I know that Midwesterners are the best Americans.</p>

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<p>Dunno…you midwesterners have such an annoying accent (said the Texan ;)).</p>

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<p>I can see where that’s coming from–not specifically HYPS, but any school that people commonly mistake to be an Ivy. If it isn’t an Ivy or mistaken for one, it’s not quite in that ‘cachet’ that helps out in ‘opening doors.’ But that’s not to say that those deemed “public Ivies” (these are the “budget Ivies,” as far as I can gather) don’t benefit immensely from their own respective reputations, because they do. I think the only reason people call them budget/public Ivies is that it’s a damn good education for a cheap price–a people’s university.</p>